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Turkey Exposes Damage Caused By Tobacco Companies With Groundbreaking New Campaign

(Ankara, Turkey)— The Turkish Green Crescent Society, a non-profit organization that works to protect people, especially youth, from smoking, alcohol, and other addictions, today launched a new national campaign to highlight the damage caused by tobacco companies in Turkey. The campaign, “Onlar Kazanırken Biz Kaybediyoruz” (“Their gain, our loss”), is the first campaign of its kind to associate tobacco companies with tobacco-related deaths.

The campaign is endorsed by the Ministry of Health of Turkey and was developed and implemented with technical and financial support from Vital Strategies, a global health organization that works in over 73 countries.

Their gain, our loss” will be broadcast to millions of people at prime time on more than 160 TV channels and 40 radio channels across Turkey. The three month-long campaign was developed to expose the health and social harm caused by the tobacco industry, whose activities include derailing government policies designed to protect people’s health from tobacco use and using misleading advertising to recruit new customers, often targeting youth.

“Turkey’s new national campaign adopts a fresh approach to encourage smoking cessation and support for tobacco control,” said Sandra Mullin, Senior Vice President at Vital Strategies. “’Their gain, our loss’ shows the tobacco industry’s singular, deadly mission – to manufacture, market and sell products that are proven to kill more than 7 million people worldwide every year, irrespective of the pain and loss that causes to people in Turkey and other countries around the world. We hope this campaign makes people think twice about the harm caused by tobacco companies and encourages smokers to make a quit attempt and congratulate the Turkish Green Crescent Society on this new “Anti-Industry” campaign, “Onlar Kazanırken Biz Kaybediyoruz” (“Their gain, our loss”).

Approximately 17 million people in Turkey use tobacco products and more than 65,300 people in Turkey die each year from tobacco-related disease, according to The Tobacco Atlasa world-leading resource on the global tobacco epidemic. The economic cost of tobacco disease is estimated to be 41.5 billion Turkish Liras (equivalent to US$7.2billion).

About the campaign

“Their gain, our loss” was developed based on formative research to assess its effectiveness in changing knowledge and raising awareness.

The campaign is being run via the country’s broadcast rule, which allows for free airtime for public service announcements, illustrating the benefit of Turkey’s sustainable mechanism for regular and sustained broadcast of media campaigns that support the government’s policies and protect health. The campaign will also be supported by social media and other campaign activities.

The ad ends with a call to action, urging smokers and non-smokers to visit www.birakabilirsin.org for information about the tobacco industry and quitting tobacco.

The new ad is available to view at https://youtu.be/LQeVVpygBvw and transcripts and stills are available upon request from press@vitalstrategies.org.

For more information on Vital Strategies’ work in tobacco control, please visit: https://www.vitalstrategies.org/programs/tobacco-control/

About Vital Strategies

Vital Strategies is a global health organization that believes every person should be protected by a strong public health system. We work with governments and civil society in 73 countries to design and implement evidence-based strategies that tackle their most pressing public health problems. Our goal is to see governments adopt promising interventions at scale as rapidly as possible. To find out more, please visit vstrategystage.wpengine.com or Twitter @VitalStrat.